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Saddam hunters pick off bad guys

IT IS a desolate place. A lone date tree stands sentinel over three dirt mounds marked at the head and foot by crude mud bricks. These are the graves of Saddam Hussein’s two sons and grandson. An empty water bottle and a crushed pack of cigarettes are the only signs of visitors, but American soldiers hunting Saddam keep the site under constant surveillance.

Their vigil from behind the tree line of the cemetery in Awja, the village on the outskirts of Tikrit where Saddam was born, reflects a faint hope that the former dictator might one day be seen standing in prayer over the graves of Uday and Qusay Hussein, and Mustapha Kamel, his 14-year-old grandson, who were killed by the Americans in July.

However improbable this image might be, the vigil indicates that while to the outside world the hunt for Saddam seems to have stalled, on the ground